Andrea Agius, 16, will be flying Malta's colours in swimming at the Island Games (COJI) starting today and ending on Sunday in the Azores Islands in the Atlantic.
The Games are intended to be a manifestation of solidarity between young people coming from insular areas, which in past years comprised islands from the Mediterranean basin, namely Sicily, Sardinia and Cyprus, besides Malta, with other islands beyond like the Isle of Wight, the Azores (Portugal) and Martinique (France).
Now the catchment area has been extended with territories such as Tahiti (French Polynesia) and the French island of Reunion making for larger participation.
Agius has already represented Malta at the FISEC Games in Hungary and France, besides competing in swim meets in southern Italy and in Berlin. He currently holds the 50, 100 and 200 metres Group 'B' records, events he will be entering in this week, besides the 200 individual medley.
His participation in these Games was made possible through the support of the Maltese Olympic Committee after being nominated by the Aquatic Sports Association of Malta.
The next international commitment for Agius will be at this year's FISEC Games due to be held in July in Tours, France, where Malta will be represented by other Maltese swimmers as well as other athletes in several disciplines.
Meanwhile, after setting three 'B' age-group records in the 50, 100 and 200 metres breaststroke events earlier this year, Amy Micallef broke new ground when competing in the fifth Age-Group Swim Meet on Sunday morning at Tal-Qroqq national pool.
The Neptunes swimmer, another protégé of Gail Rizzo, improved the previous 'B' mark of 30.15 seconds set by Talisa Pace almost five years ago when she covered the one-lap freestyle distance in 30.05, a whisker short of dipping under the 30-second barrier.
Versatile swimmer
She then went on to underline her versatility when slashing almost a second in the 50 'fly, to clock 33.89 seconds and thus erase Kim Attard's previous best of 34.86 set in 2004.
Her coach thinks that Micallef, 12 last February, will maintain the progress after bursting on the scene this season.
"Hopefully, there's more to come from this girl," a confident Rizzo said.
Sunday's event attracted a good number of swimmers, with boys and girls from the fast-growing Birkirkara St Joseph and Iasis teams complementing others, mostly from Neptunes and Sliema.
Several of the top swimmers in the national squad swam in unfamiliar races, as part of their coach's usual schedule aimed at more versatility.